


He Remembers Her

by captainswanandclintasha



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, John Constantine Needs A Hug, Minor Nate Heywood/Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi, a bit angsty, john an zari 1.0 friendship, john and zari 2.0 relationship, just because john constantine is an angsty boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24491968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainswanandclintasha/pseuds/captainswanandclintasha
Summary: He was remembering. He was remembering everything.Astra and Nathalie. Chas.He was remembering Oliver Queen and Sara Lance. Changed timelines and universes.He remembers everything, fast and in waves, memories, good and bad, of friends and enemies.Then he remembers her.
Relationships: John Constantine & Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi, John Constantine/Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	He Remembers Her

**Author's Note:**

> Set during 5x14 and after 5x15 (with a time jump during the actual last episode of the season)  
> John's thoughts while the remembers everything together with some good old John and Zari (Tomaz) frienship.

He was remembering. He was remembering everything. 

Astra and Nathalie. Chas. 

He was remembering Oliver Queen and Sara Lance. Changed timelines and universes. 

Joining the Legends and dying at Astra’s hands. 

Fighting Des. Trying to save Des. 

He remembers everything, fast and in waves, memories, good and bad, of friends and enemies. 

Then he remembers her. 

She comes in his mind like a storm, made from the same air she uses to defeat and protect. 

His memories of her are mixed in his mind, the work of the two timeless, no doubt. 

He remembers a cat.

He remembers Behrad as a cat. Then he remembers Zari as a cat. The same cat he sought comfort in when he was feeling like a failure. He remembers the friendly pat of a cat’s paw and then he remembers hugging the cat in a protective way. 

_Zari Tomaz._

Zari, a friendly face to see around the ship. But there's also Behrad, Nate’s best friend... Behrad who should be dead. Dead because of John’s own stubborn ass. He remembers that much for sure.

He remembers himself, trying to kick his father during a mission in the past. He remembers Behrad telling him it’s a time paradox? 

Behrad? No. Not Behrad. Zari. Zari in a punk costume, in a pub in London. 

Then he remembers Zari giving him a picture of him and his mom. Or was that Behrad giving him the picture? 

No. It was definitely Zari.

He remembers seeing her at Ray and Nora’s wedding for the first time. Or… another Zari… Zari… not Zari…? Not the Zari who was once a cat and helped him deal with half the mess he created by trying to change his own timeline and past. That Zari wasn’t at Ray's wedding. At the wedding it was a Zari who wears fancy clothes and heels. A Zari who is in love with social media and attention. An influencer she called herself.

It wasn’t the same Zari he once knew. The same Zari who was wearing sneakers and flannel shirts and loved eating donuts.

It was another Zari.

_Zari Tarazi._

Behrad’s sister.

Then he remembers playing Romeo, just a few weeks ago. She was Juliet. 

She captivated him from the first second he laid his eyes on her, so much that for a second he got completely lost in her eyes.

Then they kissed, as part of the play but at the same time it didn't feel like acting. It felt real. 

Maybe they were both just two good actors.

He then remembers trying to find the second ring on his own, desperate to build the Loom faster and save Astra. He remembers fighting Atropos with Sara and Charlie. Getting hurt by Atropos and saving his own ass at the last minute. The ship being attacked shortly after that. 

He remembers waking up in the medical room with blood on his shirt, when Zari stormed into the room in tears, makeup running down her cheeks. She told him her brother was dead because of him. John remembers promising her they will get Behrad back once they have the Loom.

Another promise he didn’t fully believed in, but he needed to give her something. Give her hope and give himself hope that somehow he will do right by her. 

_“Until I get my brother back, I’m with you every moment of every day,”_ she told him between tears with anger in her voice. 

And she meant it. 

He remembers Zari coming into a room full of some of the worst people on Earth, pretending to be Cleopatra and mesmerising everyone. Including him. Especially him.

They teamed up for the first time ever and it was better than he expected. She was a fighter on her own. But she was also more than she let them see. She saved his ass that day.

They almost kissed. 

_“I guess I stopped looking,”_ she told him with a small smile. 

He remembers he clearly stopped looking for the ring because his mind was too full with thoughts of her.

_“I bite too,”_ she answered to him a day later, after a lame try of flirting with her. 

He remembers being taken by surprise by her answer and her flirting back. So bad that he stumbled down the stairs on the way out of his own house. 

He remembers zombies. Sent after them on the cold roads of England by Charlie’s crazy sister. Zombies send after them while they were still immortal. With one exception.

She wasn’t. He knew she could protect herself but he still felt the need to gravitate towards her and be there in case she needed his help.

_“Come back to me. Come back to me, Zari. Come on, love,”_ he remembers the desperation in his voice while trying to wake her wake up from an old Egyptian spell he put her under, to make sure they get away from zombies. He knew it was dangerous and it could kill her. It almost killed her.

She came back eventually. Opened her eyes and looked at him in shock. Scared even. He was scared too and he knew she was able to see it in his eyes. 

John knows deep down that that was the first time he let himself admit he felt something for her.

They put it away until later. It was not the time for feelings. 

He remembers sitting in the backroom of a pub, just the two of them. Fighting. Yelling at each other and calling each other names. 

_“I wouldn’t want to be with you if you were the last man alive,”_ he remembers her yelling at him in anger.

_“Well good, because I wouldn’t want to be with you if you were the last woman-”_

Then John remembers a kiss. One born out of pure rage and frustration. A kiss so much different than the soft one they shared while playing Romeo and Juliet. A step back, her searching for his eyes, waiting the confirmation that she made a mistake by kissing him. Him going back in for the kiss with a devilish smile on his face. 

Falling on the cold floor. Scattered clothes around them and sounds of pleasure. 

Four hours and fifteen minutes later they were fighting zombies. Trying to save themselves. He remembers Zari on the floor and him pulling zombies away from her. 

Then darkness. 

A butler. 

A tv show. 

Charlie. Her sisters. 

Zari. 

“I… I remember everything. I remember Behrad. I remember Zari… both Zaris,” John heard Sara saying in the distance.

He snapped out of his own thoughts. Everything was still in a fog in his mind, memories from both timelines, memories of two different people. Zari. Tomaz. Behrad. Tarazi. Zari Tarazi. Not everything was clear in his mind. 

He looked at Zari for the first time since remembering. Really looked at her.

“It’s nice to be remembered,” Zari says in a small voice, sadness obvious in her eyes and voice.

Who was she? Who was she really? Which Zari was sitting in front of them, dressed as a doctor?

“What the hell, John?” Astra took him away to talk about her mother. 

There were questions without answers. He had his own questions as well, but he wasn’t going to say them outloud. 

When he couldn't answer to Astra anymore, he looked at the others. Sara and Ava hugging. Behrad in shock somewhere behind them.

Zari and Nate kissing.

He felt a hard punch in his stomach at the sight in front of him. He wondered again which Zari was this. Was she the Zari he remembered from the old time? Was she this Zari the whole time and she just forgot about her old life just like the rest of them? 

Did her memories come back at the same time as theirs? Is this why she is all over Nate?

Does she remember him? Does she remember what they’ve been thought since Behrad’s death? The kiss? More than the kiss?

He was starting to hate the whole situation. He knew now was not the time to think about any of this. 

And yet...

“Guys, I love that my best bud and my sister are in love. But I have to ask... Where is my Zari?” John heard Behrad asking while still trying to come out of his own shock.

John’s words came out of his mouth before his brain could realise what he was saying. “Took the words right out of my mouth, mate.”

The words were already out, there was nothing he could have done now other than hopping no one heard him. John moved from one foot to the other, avoiding looking at Nate and Zari. For whatever reason, he couldn’t stand the sigh of looking at the two of them all over each other like that. He saw Astra throwing him a knowing look with a smile in the corner of her mouth and John will be forever grateful she didn’t say anything about his reaction.

Zari and Nate finally separated from their kiss after what feels like hours. 

“Hmm… yeah. I’m sort of possessing her body,” Zari answered to Behrad.

John let out a half relieved breath.

So this was not his Zari.

* * *

Astra and him were finally back. 

Sara, Ava and Mick were waiting already for the rest of the team to appear in what seemed to be a tv studio.

“John, you made it!” Sara was the first to speak.

“Yeah, just about. What about the others?” John asked, worried that Zari, Nate and Behrad were nowhere to be seen yet.

Before he could get his answer, Nate, Zari and Behrad appeared behind him. The first thing he did was high fiving with Nate. He was legit happy to see all three of them. Zari went to hug Ava and Sara. Behrad flirted with Astra. And strangely enough Astra flirted back.

“Oh great. Out of the tv show, still in heels,” he heard Zari’s voice. 

John looked at her. The time she wasn't dressed in some old 20th century costume or as a doctor. This time she was in a black dress and red heels. 

Enough to captivate him even more than usually.

But she was still not the Zari he grew to have feelings for.

“You morons! You just couldn’t live that life, could you!?” Charlie’s voice sounded in the speakers. She was angry, that was for sure.”I gave you everything that you wanted!”

“You stuck us on tv!” Ava yelled back at Charlie.

“I brought Sara and Behrad back to life! Mick I made you a criminal again, just like you wanted! I even gave Astra a happy childhood for you, John-o!” Charlie’s desperate voice came to them again on the speakers.

“Yeah bollocks! You just used us to keep people under control!” John yelled back at her.

“It was that but you are not dead. I still have your life threads! I can put the shows back on air! I can do rewrites!” Charlie’s voice came, followed by the sound of a microphone dropping. “Behrad, you want your old Zari back? I can do that! Look,” was all the team heard before watching in amazement how out of the one Zari in front of them, came another Zari. There were two Zaris now, in the same room, one dressed in the black dress, the other in jeans and a red flannel shirt. Both looking at themselves in shock.

But John was able to tell which Zari was from which timeline. 

Which Zari was his Zari. Behrad’s Zari. And which Zari was the other one.

Then he heard her sweet voice, happiness clear in her voice as she took in her brother being alive. “Behrad is that really you?” Zari, his Zari, their Zari spoke, running towards her brother. “You’re alive!”

She never looked at John, or anyone really, other than Behrad, and he could totally get why. It’s what she wanted. For her brother to come back to life. And there he was now, back with her. 

“Charlie, you can’t bribe us to take the blue pill!” Behrad said after hugging his sister.

“I’m not bribing, I’m begging. My sisters will kill you,” Charlie answer him. 

“That’s for sure,” Astra said behind John while looking at him. 

“Yeah, well, we’ll take our chances!” Sara told Charlie. 

Then Mick spoke for the first time as well. “Lita’s out there somewhere. I’m not staying here.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Zari, the Zari they knew from the new timeline, spoke, looking at him with a mischievous smile for the first time since she came back. 

And so the team walked out the door of the fake studio, right into the new world and into a fight with Charlie’s sisters.

* * *

John dropped down on the chair in the library with a thud. Everything was finally back to normal and once again this bunch of misfits saved the world. 

He knew that of them or maybe all of them might fucking it up again very soon but for now, everything was back to normal at least for a little while. Or so he hopped. 

Even Nathalie was alive and Astra was back with her in London. 

They had one more thing to do… To figure out the deal with the two Zaris. But John didn’t want to take part in that. He wasn’t exactly the most unbiased person from the whole team, just like Nate and Behrad weren’t either. Zari from the other timeline couldn’t live in this timeline, this one they knew for sure. She couldn’t live in this timeline, not with Behrad alive and not with the other Zari still around. Zari Tomaz was a time paradox at the moment. And everyone, her included, knew it.

So John left the others just at they were coming to the conclusion that the only thing they could do, without no one dying, was for the original Zari to go back in the air totem.

John knew it wasn’t fair that she was currently taking her goodbyes from Nate and the others while he was in the library, enjoying a glass of whiskey and trying to ignore the need of a cigarette, but he wasn’t good with goodbyes anyway. He figured Zari would come to him if she’d like to talk to him before leaving.

He took another sip from the glass, leaning in the chair and closing his eyes, when he heard a knock on the door.

“Hey stranger,” he heard Zari’s voice from the door. John opened his eyes and looked at her. “May I?” Zari asked with a gesture towards the chair in front of him.

“Be my guest, love,” John said taking a better position in his own chair.

Zari came at the table and sit in the empty chair across from him. “So,” was everything she said.

“So?” he said waiting for her to continue, but when she didn’t he decided to speak. “Ready to leave?”

“Are you so excited to get rid of me, John Constantine?” Zari asked him with a smile. He knew she was just mocking him but it still stink. 

“Never love. You’ve always been a good friend,” John answered, trying to smile at her.

Zari let out a deep breath and looked at him. “Goodbyes are never easy, John.”

John nodded at her. “But at least this time you get a goodbye.”

“That I do,” she approved him. Silence followed for a few seconds and then Zari started to talk again. “So, I wanted to talk to you really quick about something, before leaving.”

“What’s that?” John asked curious.

“Who is your _Zari_?”

John choked with the air at her question. “What was that?”

Zari rolled her eyes at him and then answered with a smirk. “I heard you, John. When we were back in the tv show world, Behrad asked where his Zaris was, his sister. You said he took the words out of your mouth,” she pointed out. He cursed in his own mind, remembering his slip in that moment. “So? Your _Zari_?” the Zari in front of him continued. 

“Must’ve been something I said without thinking,” John tried to brush it away while taking a sip from his glass.

“Cut the crap John,” Zari snapped at him. “Nate told me something interesting about a four hour time period when you and her were gone. So? Wanna talk about it?”

John cursed Nate and his big mouth. “There is nothing to talk about, love.” 

“Really?” Zari asked not believing him.

“Really.”

“John Constantine, stop trying to fool me. You’ve never been good at doing it,” Zari said, suddenly serious.

“Ah but I can still try, can’t I?”

“Your Zari?” Zari pressed him again.

“Not mine. Or anyone else's for that matter. Well, Behrad's Zari for sure, but no one else's,” John finally answered to her, annoyance in his voice. “Those four hours, they were nothing.”

“According to you or to her?” Zari asked him, but he decided not to answer. It was something for him and he really didn't feel like denying it. “You feel something for her,” the Zari in front of him said, when no answer came from him.

John figured it there was no point in trying to lie to her. She knew him well enough. “Maybe,” he finally answered to her. Zari raised an eyebrow at his answer. “Okay, I won’t admit anything. You know me well enough to know I won’t.”

Zari nodded at him. “The fact that you are talking about it with me, says a lot.” 

“What are you trying to do here, Zari?”

“I am trying to get a better look at what is going on with you and me… the other me,” Zari corrected herself.

“Oh believe me, she’s not you,” John said with a smirk, thinking about the endless banter he had with the other Zari. 

“Ew, gross, John!” Zari made a disgusted face. 

“Not like that!” 

“So you like her,” Zari pointed out and no longer asking. “How? Why?”

“She’s… different.”

Zari leaned back in her own chair and answered to him. “Yeah, she wears dresses and makeup and heels.” 

“It’s not that. She’s… putting a lot of walls in front of herself, hiding behind all that makeup,” John said thinking back to all the times he saw the real Zari. “We’re more alike than you’d believe.”

“See John, you and I? We were never that different from the beginning. I didn’t spend enough time with her to see how she really is, but if she is half the way I am… I can see what pulls you towards her.”

“So you are not mad then?” John asked raising an eyebrow at her.

Zari looked at him with a frown. “Why would I be mad?”

“Me and… her?”

Zari let her head down for a few seconds then he saw her smiling and raising her head to look at him again. “No, John, I am not mad. Just… try not to break her.”

“Would hate myself forever. Also, I am pretty sure she would kill me,” John said starting to laugh.

“She would!” Zari agreed with him while laughing. 

They stayed in silence a few more minutes, each one in his chair, each one thinking about their own feelings in the moment. Then Zari looked at the clock on the wall and then her face fell. He knew what it meant without asking. It was time for her to go.

“It’s been good to have you back, Zari. Even if just for a bit,” John broke the silence and smiled at her. A real smile this time.

“It’s been good to be back,” Zari answered, millions of emotions clear on her face. “I am happy to see you all happy,” she finished.

“Some,” John said with a grimace. 

“You’ll be happy too, John,” she said putting her hand on top of his.

“I sure hope so.”

“Oh and talk to Zari, okay?” Zari told him, this time her smile reaching her eyes as well.

He nodded at her. He didn’t got the time to talk to Z since they came out of the tv show world and he knew there were stuff that needed to be discussed. Maybe not right now, but it needed to happen soon.

He looked at the Zari in front of him. “I am not good at goodbyes, love. You should know that…” he said, with regret in his voice for not knowing what were the right words to say to your friend who is going to be stuck in a totem forever. “But thank you, Zari. For being a good friend when I needed one. For helping me back then, and many times after that,” he said, knowing very well she will understand what he meant. 

Zari looked at him once again and asked him with a grimace. “Would a hug be too much from the master of dark arts?”

John laughed at the name.“Right now? Not at all.”

The two of them raised from their chairs and went around the table. When they were face to face, Zari stretched her hands in front of her and made a step towards him. John took his hands out of his pockets and went in for the hug. 

It was the most platonic hug he ever got from anyone in his life but it was exactly what he needed. Somehow, he is sure that was what she needed too. 

They stayed in the hug for a bit until they finally separated and Zari started to step away from him, satrting to walk back to the others and probably then being gone forever. 

He didn’t want to be part of it earlier, didn’t think being there would mean something, but after the talk he had with Zari, he knew he was important to her. And she was important to him. So he started to follow her towards the rest of the team, for one last time with their old Zari. 

He might suck at goodbyes, but he can be there and offer her one last smile before she leaves them. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this cause I loved writing it!  
> Let me know in the comments or on Tumblr (captainswanandclintasha)!!!


End file.
